1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, portable information processing apparatuses each equipped with a touch panel or touch pad (hereinafter referred to as “touch panel”) have been widely used. Such portable information processing apparatuses include, for example, a portable phone, a PHS (Personal Handy-phone System), a portable movie player, a portable music player, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and the like. Further recently, a television receiver, a portable game player and a remote controller are also equipped with touch panels. Out of these information processing apparatuses, some are not equipped with operating means other than touch panels. A user of such an information processing apparatus performs almost all operations with use of a touch panel.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-76926 discloses a method of switching screen displays based on the moving direction of the finger that is in touch with the screen. With use of such a method, the user may use the information processing apparatus by intuitive operations.
An example of applications executed by such an information processing apparatus equipped with a touch panel is a map application for displaying a map of a desired place. When the method of JP-A No. 8-76926 is applied to this map application, the user can scroll the map displayed on the screen by moving the finger, stylus or the like (hereinafter referred to as “operator”).
In addition, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-256338 discloses a method of scrolling the screen by changing the map in scale in accordance with a distance between the screen center and the position touched by the operator.